Wetherby High School Project

Five of our members – Peter Wilson, Jocelyn Brooks, Scott Stephenson, Jan Millar and Mavis Cryer – have been coaching 6th formers at Wetherby High School in their free periods. The sessions have gone down so well that they have been asked to come back and do it all again with a second batch of students.

We are delighted to have such able ambassadors for our Club and Association and proud that they are able to make a difference to young people in our community. Peter Wilson describes the project in this article (also submitted to The Speaker magazine):

When Wetherby High School contacted us with a plea for help in improving their sixth formers presentational skills we were delighted to assist. A number of students had given presentations to local businesses and the feedback to the School was that although their computer skills in using Powerpoint were top class, their verbal performance needed attention.

Some years ago we sponsored and judged a speech contest at the school but this arrangement fell by the wayside when the teacher who promoted this moved on. We know that many other Speakers Clubs carry out similar projects in schools, but this time we decided on a different approach. We realised that the Students would benefit far more if we coached them through the first three assignments of Section B of the Speakers Guide, in much the same way we do with our own members. This would enable each Student to receive personal tuition from our experienced evaluators.

We had limited time to act as the sessions had to be fitted in with the students’ free periods and many of them are revising for exams to be taken this year. Rather than use up their valuable time by talking to them about how to prepare their first speech, we decided to give written guidance beforehand. Knowing that Students would not want to read too many pages we condensed the main essentials of preparation and delivery into two pages which were circulated to all the Students. By doing this we ensured that at our first meeting we could listen to their speeches and give immediate feedback using our normal evaluation methods.

We had 22 Students to deal with in two consecutive one hour lessons. To cope with such numbers we mobilised a team of five experienced Evaluators and ran two classes concurrently in separate rooms, then another two classes after a short break. This meant that in two hours each team of two or three evaluators listened to and evaluated up to 11 speeches in which the Students spoke about themselves. The verbal evaluations were then followed up by written evaluations for the Students to keep. This procedure was repeated for the two follow up sessions dealing with “Mean What You Say” and “Speech Construction”. For both sessions we again provided brief written advice to the students to help them prepare.

The level of confidence displayed by most of the students surprised us, as did the variety of subjects chosen by the Speakers. These included “Knobs Versus Handles” about the most convenient methods for opening doors, Media Prejudice, and Autism. The moral values upheld by all the speakers were a delight.

News of this successful project is now spreading around the school and we have been informed that a further 19 students wish to take part. It seems that our team of evaluators is in for a busy but pleasurable Spring. We would encourage all Clubs to do what they can to help the youth of their communities to take their first steps on the road to successful speech making. We know better than anyone what valuable personal assets such skills are.

When Wetherby High School contacted us with a plea for help in improving their sixth formers presentational skills we were delighted to assist.A number of students had given presentations to local businesses and the feedback to the School was that although their computer skills in using Powerpoint were top class, their verbal performance needed attention.

Some years ago we sponsored and judged a speech contest at the school but this arrangement fell by the wayside when the teacher who promoted this moved on. We know that many other Speakers Clubs carry out similar projects in schools, but this time we decided on a different approach. We realised that the Students would benefit far more if we coached them through the first three assignments of Section B of the Speakers Guide, in much the same way we do with our own members. This would enable each Student to receive personal tuition from our experienced evaluators.

We had limited time to act as the sessions had to be fitted in with the students’ free periods and many of them are revising for exams to be taken this year.Rather than use up their valuable time by talking to them about how to prepare their first speech, we decided to give written guidance beforehand.Knowing that Students would not want to read too many pages we condensed the main essentials of preparation and delivery into two pages which were circulated to all the Students. By doing this we ensured that at our first meeting we could listen to their speeches and give immediate feedback using our normal evaluation methods.

We had 22 Students to deal with in two consecutive one hour lessons. To cope with such numbers we mobilised a team of five experienced Evaluators and ran two classes concurrently in separate rooms, then another two classes after a short break. This meant that in two hours each team of two or three evaluators listened to and evaluated up to 11 speeches in which the Students spoke about themselves. The verbal evaluations were then followed up by written evaluations for the Students to keep. This procedure was repeated for the two follow up sessions dealing with “Mean What You Say” and “Speech Construction”. For both sessions we again provided brief written advice to the students to help them prepare.

The level of confidence displayed by most of the students surprised us, as did the variety of subjects chosen by the Speakers. These included “Knobs Versus Handles” about the most convenient methods for opening doors, Media Prejudice, and Autism.The moral values upheld by all the speakers were a delight.

News of this successful project is now spreading around the school and we have been informed that a further 19 students wish to take part.It seems that our team of evaluators is in for a busy but pleasurable Spring.We would encourage all Clubs to do what they can to help the youth of their communities to take their first steps on the road to successful speech making. We know better than anyone what valuable personal assets such skills are.

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